D's Visitor
by Rose Spirit
Summary: An unexpected guest forces D to become a nanny. Rated PG for possible violence later (big surprise in a PSoH fic).
1. What the?

Ellen: Hiya! I came up with this idea kinda fast… I hope you like it! There will be NO DxLeon, so don't get your hopes up, but I hope you'll read this anyway! This story is dedicated to Chippi!

Disclaimer: I don't own PSoH (or any other anime/manga/…anything really, if I forgot to say it in my other fics) or Chippi, but Diana Kimura is mine and mine alone!

With a start, Count D awoke from what he dimly remembered was a pleasant dream to a relatively _un_pleasant squawking sound. 'Oh, P-Kun, I guess it's time for your nightly feeding,' thought the count, as he rose from his bed in a room in the back of his pet shop. 'This is the best part of raising baby phoenixes!' Even though he was barely awake, the Count managed to find his way down the hallway of his shop toward the hungry phoenix. There always seemed to be a soft glow emanating from the walls at night, so lighting was never really a problem. However, on the way to the bird's cage, where the floor should have been flat, there was a rather large lump, which the lighting couldn't really pick up, that D managed to trip over. As D massaged his bruised pride on the floor, the lump moaned and squirmed. With a start, Count D jumped up and turned on the lights. What should befall his eyes, but the small form of a girl, huddled in front of him.

Count D looked at the girl in surprise. "Who might you be, little one? Store hours ended quite a while ago."

The small child, who couldn't have been more than four years old, uncurled herself from her huddled position, gazed up at D, and stammered, "Mistew Cownt D? My mommy an' daddy tol' me ta come hewe, 'cuz dere was a stwange man in da house and I wan befowe he could see me but I dunno wha' happened to my mommy an' daddy-" she took a huge breath, "-but I came hewe 'cuz dey know you but da door was cwosed but I saw a wittle door on da side so I came in an' I guess I was a wittle sweepy 'cuz I fell asweep an' den you were hewe…" The girl then blinked a few times and said slowly, "My name's Di…ana… Ki…mu…wa!" Diana smiled upon the successful completion of her name. "But most pepowe caw me Di."

The Count thought for a moment. "Diana Kimura… Ah, yes! The one I sold the parakeet to last week. How is E-Chan?"

Di gasped. "How do you know E-Chan's name? It's my secwet name! To evewyone ewse I caw him Buttewcup."

The Count smiled. "Don't worry about it. Now, you said your parents sent you here?"

The girl nodded gravely. "They got weawy scawed. So… so… can I stay hewe fow a whiwe?"

With a slight hesitation, D nodded. "Of course. There's an extra bed in – " He was cut short by a renewed bout of squawking from P-Kun. Di covered her ears.

"Hold on, Diana. P-Kun is very hungry!" As D moved around the dimly lit shop, Di followed him with childlike wonder every step of the way. Once D had finished mixing the phoenix's meal, he carried it over to the scrawny-looking bird that had just begun to grow some of its trademark beautiful orange-red feathers, which became silent as soon as it saw that D had food. Before the count was able to satisfy the bird's growing appetite, however, Di's voice piped up.

"Can I feed him, Mistew Cownt D? He wooks wike my E-Chan! I'we be vewy cawefuwe! Pweese?"

D sighed, and closed his eyes. "Diana, baby phoenixes are very difficult creatures to handle. He might bite your hand off if… you…" Di had begun to feed P-Kun on her own, and the bird was gurgling happily as it ate from her hand. As soon as D realized this, he opened his eyes in astonishment. "My goodness!" was all he could say. Di looked up at the count with a big grin on her face as soon as the bird was finished.

"Dat was fun!" She yawned, and rubbed her eyes. "I'm tiwed. Good night." With this she heavily sat down, closed her eyes, and began to breathe deeply. Count D gently picked up the sleeping girl, and laid her in the bed of a room down the hallway from his.

"Good night," he whispered as he closed the door. "Don't let the pets bite…"

Ellen: Writing Diana's dialogue is so fun! If any of you reviewers (hint hint) have ever played Chrono Cross (the best yet most addicting game for PS1 EVER!!! I'm fighting the urge to play it right now!), I modeled her speech on the Pip character, because he is soooo adowable!

Fwooshy: Remind me to hide the controller tomorrow morning…

Ellen: Hey!!

Cheddar: I hope everyone reading this can read between the lines! Or do I have to repeat myself like I do in every other fanfiction we write?! mutter

Ellen & Fwooshy: ;;


	2. New Friends

Ellen: Hello! I hope you like this next chapter! Oh, by the way, for those of you who don't speak Toddler, here's the translation from the last chapter:

"Mister Count D? My mommy and daddy told me to come here, because there was a strange man in the house and I ran before he could see me but I don't know what happened to my mommy an' daddy-" she took a huge breath, "-but I came here because they know you but the door was closed but I saw a little door on the side so I came in and I guess I was a little sleepy because I fell asleep and then you were here…"

Cheddar: It's just one long, run-on sentence. Cyute! But, we haven't been that age in a while, so maybe we laid the accent on a little too thick?

Ellen: I'll lessen it a bit for this chapter. See what you think.

The next morning, as Di woke up, she could hear the muted screeches and growls of the many pets that she knew to inhabit D's pet shop. She padded out into the hallway, and, picking a direction at random, began to explore. Most of the doors lining the hall were locked, and the doorknobs of some others were too high for her to reach. Still others didn't even _have_ doorknobs. The ones she could open, however, led her to a beach, a jungle, a desert plain, and many, many rooms of cages, some ordinary-looking, some elaborately decorated with silver, gold, and precious gems. Di wandered slowly through these, peering into each cage as she went, finding all sorts of interesting, cute, and scary creatures, that seemed to look like people, but also resembled animals. Di made a mental note to ask the Count about it, but promptly forgot it upon reaching the next cage. Finally, the hallway brought her to the front of the pet shop, where D had set out a plate of breakfast for her on a table near the entrance of the hall. D was currently chatting with a blond man in jeans and a t-shirt with words on it that Di couldn't read.

"So anyway, there were slash marks found on the parents' bodies, and no trace of the little girl…" The strange man looked around suddenly, and started upon seeing her standing in the threshold of the hallway. "Hey D, who's this?" he asked.

"Oh, good morning, Diana!" D said with a small smile. "I set out some breakfast for you, if you are hungry. This is Detective Leon Orcot." The larger man grunted. "Chris, his brother, is in the back playing with the animals. You should go meet him, if you're not hungry."

"Hey D, she isn't one of your pets, is she?" Orcot asked. "Like, a dragon or a man-eating palm tree or something like that?"

D looked offended. "When have I ever stocked a man-eating palm tree?? And why would I allow one to play with Chris?" Di blinked a few times, and disappeared as she scampered down the hallway of the pet shop.

"Fine, fine then… But if she really turns out to be somethin' weird then I'll have you busted before you can say 'Flesh-eating koala'!!"

"I believe you, Leon," said D with an enigmatic smile.

Elsewhere in the pet shop, Di was looking for Chris, and eventually found a boy that looked just like a young version of Detective Orcot in a room close to the front of the store that she hadn't cared to look in before.

"Hi, I'm Diana," she said slowly, "but you can call me Di. Are you Chris?" The boy smiled, and all of a sudden, Di could hear what she thought to be the boy's voice, but it came directly into her head, not through her ears.

Hi! Yeah, I'm Chris. 

Then Di noticed some of the animal-people hanging around Chris. One began to talk.

"So you know about Chris, eh? Then you must be a friend," said a young boy with a fin on top of his head. "My name's Phillipe."

"I'm T-Chan the mighty!" a young man with ram's horns declared with a wolfish grin.

That's true, but remember, I can beat you up with the best of them! 

T-Chan didn't like to be reminded of that little fact. "Well, I let you win," he said with a pout.

One of the other pets, a young girl, turned to Di. "My name's Pandora," she gestured to the animals in the cages behind them, "and these are the pets of Count D's pet shop."

"So all of the animals fwom the pet shop awe like this?" Di asked. "I just got a bird hewe last week, and he didn't look wike dis at all…"

The pets looked alarmed. "A bird? You mean E-Chan?" asked Phillipe.

"How do you know his name?" Di was confused.

"How do _you_ know his name?" inquired Pandora. "Wait, maybe I can explain this. We only look like this because of the special incense Count D burns in the pet shop. Did he give you any incense?"

"Yeah," Di said after some consideration, "but Mommy threw it away. She said she didn' want anything I might get burned on. But I knew I was caweful, so I got it and burned it in my room, 'cause I didn't wanna make Count D mad. Then Daddy found me, an' took it away again…"

Just then, Leon came to pick up his brother, with Count D following behind.

"Come on, Chris. Let's go home," said a frustrated Orcot, as he finally managed to drag Chris away from the pets after a few minutes of unaided struggle. After they were gone, Count D turned to Di.

"Did you have a good time with Chris, Diana?"

"Yeah, but…" she looked back at the pets for help, "was something wong with E-Chan?"

D looked confused. "No, Diana. Nothing is wrong with E-Chan, except that he becomes very attached to the one that adopts him, and that he's very intelligent…"

"In… tell…?" Being only four years old gave Di a hard time grasping any word with more than two or three syllables.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Diana. It means that E-Chan is very smart. But those are good qualities in a pet, correct?"

"Yeah, but – " At that moment, the two heard the soft tinkle of the bell on the door of the pet shop, signaling that another new customer had come in search of love, hope, and fulfilled dreams.

"Oh," murmured the count. "I'll be back in a bit, Diana."

After D had gone, Diana turned to the pets again. "He said E-Chan was good, right?"

"Actually, Count D really doesn't know as much about his pets as he would like," Pandora replied. "He probably didn't know about E-Chan's mean streak before he sold him to you."

"So E-Chan is bad?"

"Well," said Phillipe, "he's not entirely bad, but he's missing an important thing we like to call a conscience. E-Chan is very reckless, and doesn't think about the consequences of his actions before he does them. However, he's very good at covering up whatever he does when it's something not good."

Di, lost, simply nodded.

Ellen: After some debate, I decided to allow Di to be able to hear Chris' thought-speaking. At first she wasn't able to, but I figure this makes the story a bit smoother.

Lauren: We're almost at the climax of the story! I didn't think it would go this fast…

Ellen: We're sorry about the slow posts, too.

Soup: We've been laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy!! zz

Ellen: ; Anyway, we hope to be making more progress in our stories soon! See ya!


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